North

The heroes have almost caught up with Gargarensis in the mysterious and frigid north lands, when the Cyclops lays a trap for them.

Starting objective: The avalanche has split your forces. Reunite them and claim a settlement. (1)

Difficulty levels:

  • Easy:
    • Start with more upgrades
    • Less enemy units in the pass
  • Hard/Titan:
    • Do not start with any upgrades
    • Start in the Archaic Age instead of Classical

This scenario opens with your forces scattered around the pass in small groups. Fenris Wolves are scattered in the intervening areas to make joining up your forces more dangerous. On the harder difficulties, you can forget about trying to explore with any of your parties but those with Amanra and Arkantos – Hersir have about 3 attack while in the Archaic age, and your other units don’t stand a chance against the wolves.

First order of business is finding a settlement and starting construction on a Town Center. There are three settlements in the pass. One is directly southeast of Arkantos, (1a) and has a lot of hunting nearby, while another is directly northwest of Amanra, (1b) and has more wood nearby. There are three others settlements (1) but these are either too far away, or too difficult to defend. (Particularly the one in the center of the map – you get attacks hitting from three different directions.) So pick one of the first two, head for it, and leave your infantry units there constructing a TC. Now use Amanra and Arkantos to explore the pass and unite your forces.

By the time you’ve brought all your units back to your settlement of choice, your Town Center should be up. Once it’s completed, you’ll receive your main objective.

New objective: To escape the pass, defeat Gargarensis’ forces by destroying the three enemy Temples. (2)

Each of the Temples in the pass generates attacks. The one in the northwest (2a) trains Frost and Mountain Giants, the one in the south (2b) trains Einherjar, and the Temple in the east of Gargarensis’ camp (2c) trains Fenris Wolves. Gargarensis’ camp will also train Ulfsarks.

On Titan and possibly Hard, survival is going to prove challenging. You are going to need Hersir and Throwing Axemen, and lots of them. TA’s may murder Ulfsarks under normal circumstances, but Gargarensis is going to have Champion Ulfsarks with all upgrades before you even have Medium Infantry. Likewise with your Hersir, he’s going to be hitting you with packs of Fenris Wolves just minutes into the mission.

Establish an economy. Because you are playing as Thor, it is easier to mine gold and just train dwarves to start off with. (This is because Thor’s dwarves gather wood and food as fast as normal villagers. This isn’t a good idea when you are playing Loki or Odin.) This will also save you food that can go into training Hersir.

Get a temple up straight away and begin training Hersir – they cost a lot of food, so you probably won’t be able to maintain constant production. Advance to Classical under Forseti (assuming you’re not playing on the easier difficulties – if you are, you wuss!) as soon as possible – he grants the Hall of Thanes upgrade to your Hersir, and the Healing Spring god power. Put up a Longhouse or two, and begin training Throwing Axemen to supplement your Hersir. You can also wall off some approaches to your camp to force enemy units to attack from the one direction. (Don’t bother trying to wall yourself in entirely – most enemy units on this mission pull down defenses quickly.)

Gargarensis usually invokes the Fimbulwinter god power soon after he advances to the Mythic age. Either keep your villagers near your Town Center after he advances, or keep your Hersir at home – they should make quickly work of any wolves.

There are four relics to be found in the pass. The ones that can be retrieved without a fight are near the easternmost settlement where Arkantos started, (1a) and and the in the north of the map. (4) The other two are near the Temple that trains Einherjar, (2b) and in Gargarensis’ camp. (3)

You don’t need a large army to take out the two Temples outside Gargarensis’ camp. (2a & 2b) And since the earlier you destroy them the less attacks you have to endure, it serves your purposes to try and take one of them out as quickly as possible. Once you have at least 10+ Hersir and Throwing Axemen – which hopefully won’t take you too long to mass – head out and attack whichever one is closer. Don’t waste time knocking down the Hill Fort, the Temple will go down quickly and you can then clear out of the area.

On Hard and Titan, delay your next move until an attack has arrived from the other three sources. This is because you will be in a lot of trouble if a pack of Fenris Wolves show up in your camp while your army is on the other side of the map. (Speaking of Fenris Wolves – these guys are the toughest of the attacks you will get, because when they get into numbers of five or greater, their attack gets as high as 40 per second and they move as fast as lightning. Focus fire your units to try and kill single Wolves as quickly as possible, rather than letting them pick their own targets. This will reduce their pack bonus and make them less dangerous.) Use the intervening time to heal, train more units and buy more upgrades. Once you’ve dealt with three attacks, (two types of MU and ulfsarks from Gargarensis’ camp) then head out and repeat the process by attacking the remaining Temple outside Gargarensis camp.

Attacking Gargarensis’ camp (3) will not prove much challenge if you have continued training and upgrading units while you’ve been carrying out each attack. Advancing to Heroic and building a ram or two may help, since the AI usually builds additional defenses here. Once you breach Gargarensis’ walls, don’t bother trying to raze everything within, just head straight east and raze the temple. Once it goes down, you’ll be rewarded with victory.

On to mission 23

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